Educating About Sex In A Rape Culture

DRAFT – PART 1

Full disclosure: The words you are about to read are from a person who identifies as a feminist, is a board certified sexologist and sex educator who through education and communication wants all people to have happy, healthy, pleasurable sex lives, who is a mother of children, and who as once raped.  If you find yourself taking offense and/or wanting to attack me for sharing my opinion on this highly controversial topic then examine your own emotions first.  NOTE: I do NOT identify as a rape apologist nor a Men’s Rights Activist. It does us no good to point fingers anymore. Let’s fix this now.

This is a two part series. In this first post, I will tell you situations I believe contribute to the American society being a Culture of Humiliation & Disrespect (or what others call a “Rape Culture”). For the purposes of this blog, my definition is as follows:

1. A culture that mutely and blindly refuses to acknowledge behavior that supports victim blaming and protects abusers and rapists, 

2. forgets to look at the causes that lead to the acceptance of violence against others and rape in our society, 

3. sexualizes or punishes other beings for being just that – something “other” than they are, and 

4. refuses to see the humanity of others by reducing them to mere objects or body parts. 

In order to describe how I think we got to where we are today, let’s start with some basic ingredients:

• Start with a society obsessed with all things SEX.
• Take away honest, accurate sexual education.
• Deny real talk about consent and deny discovering or expressing your boundaries out of misguided politeness.
• Make sure that REAL information about sex and sexuality is difficult to find.
• Place a stigma or shame on anyone who is interested in healthy sex.
• Add the death of discourse – an inability to talk about sex, sexuality, etc.
• Think that sex is just for procreation and/or just about penises and vaginas.
• Only acknowledge one narrow, heterocentric view of How Sex Should Be.
• Forget about the fact that there are critical, non-sexual components to sex that are important for everyone to learn.
• Fill the media (which is easily accessible to the masses) with all manner of sex negative or inaccurate sex info; this includes TV shows, magazines, news channels, movies, and to a lesser extent newspaper.
• Stir.

So where do people see this humiliation and disrespect in action?

Let’s review a couple of examples looking through the eyes of a young person who has never had sex ed or has never learned some basic concepts about boundaries or consent (because let’s face it…even if you have had basic sex ed were you also taught about Communication? Consent? Respect? Pleasure? Fantasy?)

Situation 1.  This person watches the season 2, episode 1 of “Don’t Trust The B—- In Apt 23”. Six minutes into this episode the main female character muses about how fun it is to shoot a hot guy with a tranquilizer gun and hear his body hit the ground, then this character says dreamily, “Tranq Sex: it’s consensual.”

I’m sorry, but NO!! No one points out what was just said was WRONG or why. Does anyone point out that tranquilizer sex is the opposite of consensual and that it constitutes rape?  No. It gets the laughs and they move on. Perhaps it was funny or acceptable because it was a woman saying it and not a man?? Well it wasn’t funny to me. I was horrified. Think of the kids who saw that and the implied message they received absent any redirect. 

Situation 2: This person watches the movie “Bachelorette” (2012) starring Kirsten Dunst and Isla Fischer.  In this movie there’s a character Joe who has been long interested in Isla Fischer’s character Katie (ah, high school unrequited love). Forty-three minutes into the movie, they are all out late partying at a strip club. As they are leaving, the player-type guy friend tells Joe that Katie (who is puking and falling down drunk) is “G2G – Good to Go so just take her home and slip it in”. Joe replies, “I am not going to “slip it in”, she is wasted, that would be like rape”. (side note: WTF?!? “…would be like rape”?? THAT IS RAPE!) This guy friend gives Joe a bottle of pills and Joe whispers to ask if the pills are date rape drugs. The player guys tells him loudly no, it’s Xanax for him to take so he won’t be so paranoid.

Um, okay, can we agree that this situation is also clearly giving a really disturbing message? No one in the movie addresses why any of that is messed up. The message is that the MAN is supposed to numb himself so he doesn’t have to feel bad for raping a WOMAN who can’t give consent herself because she is clearly intoxicated. Can anyone describe that to me differently?

(Side note: I don’t even look for these examples anymore. It’s like they find me. Either that, or this stuff is so prevalent that no matter what I do watch I see it. This scares me because I don’t watch TV much. Really. Someone else will have to tell me if I’m off-base; that this is only a chance happening that I’m stumbling onto these examples as often as I do… But I really doubt it.)

This stuff is cumulative. 

Let me say this very clearly: I believe it is absolutely irresponsible for our society to provide the “entertainment” content we do under the guise of “humor” when our youth is not ALSO exposed to accurate, honest education around sex and sexuality. How does anyone understand that something is or is not funny if they don’t also understand the message behind it?? This education is not just for children. I know plenty of adults who have difficulty with not only their emotions, feelings, and thoughts about sexual behavior, but also need to understand the nonsexual components behind sex, love, and relationships. Our understanding of this does not get better when a solid foundation hasn’t already been laid. 

Why do I think some guys rape? 

The men I am going to describe here — and I’m only going to address the men here because women do rape as well — are the ones where the words “nice guy” have been used (see also the teens in the Steubenville rape trial). I am NOT addressing the clearly sociopathic ones but I will touch on that later.

There is a blog that came out not long ago which says there are two kinds of rapists: “Sadistic and opportunistic.”  I believe there are more than just the 2 kinds of rapists as that blog would have us think. This binary thinking around rape is bogus (just like any binary thinking about gender, sexual orientation, the range of sexual behaviors, etc is bogus). I believe it’s a spectrum like most things. And none of the rape spectrum is good. I know there are sociopaths who are on their way to more violent behavior (like murder).  There are other men who just don’t care what women think and want to take what they think is theirs to take but who aren’t necessarily on their way to murder (a result of our objectification of women and/or the goal-focused approach to sex – aka “get in, get off, get out”). But there ARE also men who truly don’t know or who aren’t aware of their behavior to know that what they are doing is wrong or a bad thing (Steubenville?). 

The TV & movie situations listed above are only two but part of a much bigger machine that fails to inform.  I think we can use these and other examples to help us identify why rape may be happening right in front of us. It seems because what happened in Steubenville was not the “violent” form of non-consensual sex it was not seen as Rape. Does this happen just because we have failed as a society to inform our population accurately about the importance of good sexual information? Whose fault is this? Is fault even the right concept?  Some people wish others would stop blaming and getting angry but that is part of the healing process. It’s hard and lots of people don’t know how to move through that with grace and responsibility. But no matter where you are in your journey, the thing that needs to be addressed is “How do we transform this culture of humiliation and disrespect”?  “How do we fix this”?

I mentioned earlier that I am a victim of rape myself. I am not comfortable describing that situation here but I wrote my story online before anonymously. I will not make any apologies for not telling you about that story here. Say or think what you will about me for that. I will however tell you about another story that happened to me not long ago.

TRIGGER WARNING:  A guy I was in a relationship with had had a few drinks (I would say he was drunk but he and I disagreed on what “drunk” was. He had direct experience with alcoholism in his family – clearly I had no concept of what drunk was </sarcasmfont> – but I digress). Normally I’m up for sex but we had been arguing about something and things surrounding that issue had not yet been resolved. He had a lot to drink that night (I did not). When we went to bed he wanted to have sex (I did not). I was laying on my side turned away from him. He proceeded to pressure me; pressing up against me, rolling me over onto my back, and clearly presenting -ahem- that he wanted to have sex. Besides my body language, I told him verbally that I wasn’t interested in having sex, told him to go to sleep, yet he persisted. It got to a point where I got so pissed off that I sat up and said “Knock it off! If you don’t stop right now, you will be raping me!” He stopped immediately, appeared a bit disoriented, mumbled (apologies?) and passed out.

I was very upset and called a girlfriend the next day to tell her what happened.

It gets better: I had a follow up conversation with him and he did not remember the situation at all.

At one point in my time with him I cared for him very deeply. He seemed to be a good man and father himself. I will say it again: to all outward appearances this person seemed like a good man but if I may suggest, a little unaware and numb. I do not believe this person is terrible nor unredeemable. But this example fits the behavior of a person who had absolutely no sex education in their entire school career (which he did not). So where did he learn about sexual behaviors, pleasure focused intimacy, consent and boundaries? Where does anyone who doesn’t get the education from a good sex positive source. 

In the next blog post, I will detail my suggestions for What We Must Do To Eliminate Rape Culture.

PART 2 

What We Must Do To Eliminate Rape Culture

In part one of this series, I detailed what situations I believe contribute to the American Society being a a Culture of Humiliation and Disrespect (aka Rape Culture).  Ours is a culture steeped in a deep disrespect for women, not to mention a disrespect for any “other”, and for some reason there exists an absolute inability to listen when something has a “feminist” undertone. Many people fight the notion that “rape culture”  exists.  Perhaps the idea and the real pain behind it is too difficult to grasp so it is easier to deny.  

Situations that come up from time to time, like Steubenville, rapes on University campuses, etc., scare me to no end.  I find myself unable to even read the accounts without getting extremely upset if only for the depictions of its utter disrespect and stupidity on all levels. I know these are not isolated events. I know there are plenty of kids out there who think rape is only rape when it’s violent, or think it’s only rape when drugs are present or it’s at a party. Just because many people think that rape is only the drag-you-into-the-bushes-and-kill-you kind does not make that so. Let’s take action where we need to and punish those who rape. But let’s also try to figure out how to educate everyone and to fix this so it doesn’t happen again!

I believe the best sex education starts very basically and really has nothing to do with penises and vaginas/vulvas. To help people understand the nonsexual components of human sexuality, I have identified these 5 Building Blocks to a Healthy Sexuality (Communication, Consent, Respect, Pleasure, & Fantasy). My model has not yet been part of a research study with an independent review board yet I look forward to peer review and any feedback on these. I have identified these blocks based on the observations of a sexologist, sex educator, and mother. If you break down the problems we have in our society right now with sex & sexuality – not only rape culture – these problems could be aided by thinking about the five building blocks as being a foundation for where we start to educate people about sex and sexuality.  Again, the important thing to note is that none of these blocks has anything directly to do with penises and vaginas/vulvas but they absolutely are part of where we start to teach young people. It doesn’t matter if you are a person who believes in comprehensive sex education or abstinence only before marriage sex education; these blocks apply to both approaches. They are also absolutely for everyone at any age and you can start learning them at any time. Now would be good.

It is not enough to say that “people should just know these things” – that it’s part of being a good human being. I think rape exists because no one has taught anyone about the importance of these 5 blocks (listed here along with a few bits of clarification):

• communication (being able to communicate feelings and emotions, understanding that emotion is not a bad thing, communicating needs, wants, desires and listening to same, tuning in to the body language of others, communication through touch),
• consent (the importance of boundaries, learning ownership for your own body, embracing and exercising the ability to say no, and being able to accept “no” for an answer),
• respect (for self and others, learning a healthy body image, and learning the concept of Do No Harm),
• pleasure (the simple power of human touch like a hug, that pleasure is more than just “sexual”, recognition that any sexual pleasure should be there for both/all parties, not just one person which is usually the male), and
• fantasy (that’s it’s ok to have fantasies and they don’t all have to be acted upon or fulfilled, to maintain that childlike curiosity and focus).

When we can teach these things to our children they learn skills that they can apply to their relationships as they grow and develop. How many of us could have used these lessons growing up?

Here’s another piece of my own suggested solution:

• Let’s remember that sex is not just about penises and vaginas.
• Let’s teach people that communicating their feelings early/young and often is better than creating situations for people to take frustration out on others because there is no other outlet (any of the shooting tragedies we have experienced in America are more examples of why this is important but that’s another story).
• Let’s remove the stigma around asking for help or advice. There is absolutely nothing wrong with asking for help or getting help. If you ask any sex therapist, educator or counselor, most people just want to know that they are “normal” sexually.
• Let’s call out when shows and movies depict things like what happened in the two situations I outlined in Part 1, maybe taking a page from the Miss Representation organization’s #NotBuyingIt campaign.
• Let’s make sure people know it is absolutely ok to share your feelings. Allowing a young boy to cry does not “turn him gay”. It tells him that it’s okay to have emotion.  Allowing any child to cry is okay especially when there is a hug there to hold them while they cry. 
• Let’s allow our children to see us cry. It does not show them we are weak; It shows them that we are human. We can help by showing them what they can do to feel better – stuffing those emotions down is not it.
• Let’s make sure people know it is absolutely okay to share their heart openly. That they are whole beings in and of themselves who do not need another half, better or otherwise. That if someone doesn’t take their heart it is the other person’s loss not their own.
• Let’s make sure everyone understands pleasure focused intimacy; that when you engage in sexual behavior, pleasure is to be had by all parties involved (and that pleasure might look different to us all and we must be able to communicate that as well). It certainly is not about one party “getting off”. Learning that ejaculation is the end result before a pregnancy occurs (if our kids get that much info) it’s no wonder so many people have unfulfilled sex lives. How much fun is it if only one partner ever gets off? Answer: NONE!
• Let’s teach people how to read their own emotional responses – clean up your messes, leave no trace.

These suggestions are just the tip of the iceberg and are really focused only lightly on the first two blocks: communication and consent. There’s so much more to both of those blocks and I am writing a more in depth work about each of these 5 building blocks. Each of the 5 are vitally important to the conversations and lessons about sex & sexuality. 

Many parents have a difficult time broaching the topic of sex with their children. It’s understandable: not many of us got good sex education as we were growing up. I think if parents realize that the conversations that lead up to the tougher questions about sex and sexuality were so basic, the concepts that need to be discussed are so elementary. These 5 Building Blocks To A Healthy Sexuality are it. Our children learn math and some of its basic concepts when they are toddlers. You don’t start off with calculus.  You start first with things like one block, two blocks, etc.  Then over time we teach them how to add and subtract. Hopefully they’ve gotten those concepts down when we add into the mix multiplication and division – and so on.  The same approach follows with discussions about sex and sexuality. You start with more basic concepts. That is what I propose here.

In our American society, if we talk about sex at all we certainly don’t talk about the pleasure of sex. Instead we make it scary.  We don’t talk about the benefits of sex. Instead we talk about the dangers. I want to shift this. Thankfully, I know I’m not alone in this wish. I want to make sure that we educate boys and girls, men and women about ALL aspects of human sexual behavior – the who’s, the what’s, the why’s, and the how’s – so everyone can develop and enjoy a healthy sexuality.

xxoo

The MamaSutra

(c)2014 The MamaSutra